


What Happens in Berchtesgadener Land...

by dizzy



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darren is impulsive and Chris grows a beard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happens in Berchtesgadener Land...

Chris is changing.   
  
He’s growing, developing, maturing in front of Darren’s eyes and sometimes Darren gets this giddy feeling inside that he gets to be here for it. He already knows he’s a lucky son of a bitch for a million different reasons, but this - this one sticks. This one lurks around and catches him off guard sometimes. He notices it when he loses himself in the sharper angles of Chris’s jaw or the leaner lines of his body, and when he just sits back and listens to Chris slipping into professional mode.   
  
Through the entire press junket all he can do is sit and admire how quick on his feet Chris is. He’s funny but he doesn’t use it like a crutch, not like Darren does sometimes. As soon as the live chat is over Darren is springing over toward him, feeling prouder and almost more accomplished than he would if the book had his name on the cover, the movie had his name on the credits.   
  
Chris is changing and he’s earned every fucking bit of this. He’s earned the right to grow into what he wants to be. He’s reaching for the stars and fucking  getting them. 

But it’s at a cost, sometimes. The cost is time, and sleep, and energy. Chris has jammed more into two years than Darren has into the last decade, and that’s saying something because Darren likes to pride himself on going for it with gusto. Chris punishes his mind and body alike with a nonstop schedule, even if what it really calls for is just sitting in front of his computer for an eight hour stretch writing or editing. 

He deserves a break. Darren isn’t sure Chris has really even    
_had_   
a vacation, not one he didn’t pair up with some opportunity for work. And isn't that really a shame... 

*

Darren might have been    
_technically_   
drunk when he bought the plane tickets, but by the next morning when he’s shaken the hangover off and settled back into himself he still thinks it’s a good idea. 

Okay, he’s not entirely sure why    
_Bavaria_   
seemed like the perfect place at two in the morning, but it doesn’t take much searching online to find somewhere for them to stay. The more he reads about the area the more excited he gets. 

* 

He has no idea how to tell Chris, so he sort of just doesn’t. 

He tells Lea, and Cory, and Dianna, and Vanessa. 

Predictably, Chris finds out. He comes wandering up to Darren wearing Kurt’s clothes with Kurt’s hair and a very Chris little smile on his face. “Something you want to tell me?” 

Darren grins and scratches the back of his neck. “Pack a bag?” 

* 

“Berchtesgadener Land,” Darren announces, flinging his wide. They’re standing in front of the cabin that he’d rented for them. 

Chris commends him on his expert butchering of the pronunciation and they go inside, because it’s snowing and there’s a fireplace waiting and Chris has been cold since halfway through the flight. 

Darren jokes about warming him up, and it’s the same sort of joke that he’d make on set but on set Chris would never lift an eyebrow so delicately and quirk a smile right back like he’s thinking of taking Darren up on it. 

Well, that’s    
_new_   
... and interesting. 

*

On day three, Darren realizes Chris has stopped shaving. 

He develops a minor obsession with the stubble on Chris’s cheeks. He strokes the backs of his fingers against Chris’s cheeks while Chris naps, head on Darren’s lap. The intimacy of the position goes noted but unspoken and Darren starts to wonder if Chris needs touch like he needs relaxation, if maybe that’s something else he lets fall to the wayside in favor of productivity. 

He makes it his own little experiment to cuddle and tackle and snuggle and hug and hold as much as he can, and if he gets a little something out of it (stubble burn on the side of his neck, wondering how it would feel other places, and    
_what_   
is in the air here?) then that’s even better. 

* 

Darren gets cabin fever long before Chris does. He disappears for a few hours one evening and goes into town. He browses and buys souvenirs (some stupid, some genuine). He picks up roast pork for them to have for dinner on a whim, cheese and a couple bottles of nice wine and some fruit since they’ve already gone through the basket that was in the cabin when they arrived. 

When he gets back he feels better, refreshed. He doesn’t spot Chris right away but when he calls out Chris answers through the half open sliding door that leads to the deck, telling Darren that he’s in the hot tub. 

Darren shifts on his feet indecisively outside the door. “Are you decent?” He calls out. 

“No. Are you coming?” Chris answers. 

A spike of want twists through Darren, leaving him breathless. He walks inside and looks at Chris, face flushed from the heat under the burgeoning beard and smiling. His shoulders are visible, one knee bent and rising out of the water while the other is a pale pink blur stretched out under it. 

“You want company?” Darren asks. 

“Well, I didn’t invite you in just so I could put on a floor show,” Chris says. He wiggles the fingers of one hand just at the surface of the water to watch it ripple. “It feels good.” 

“Gosh golly, I don’t have my suit with me.” Darren is already unbuttoning his pants. There’s snow on the ground and a bite in the air, so he doesn’t want to take his time. He strips with little modesty and no hesitation and then steps into the warm water. “Where do you want me?” 

Chris looks amused again. Is that even a good sign? Darren doesn’t particularly care.

“That’s a dangerous question.” Chris doesn’t give him any more than that, no indication of how serious he is. Darren sits opposite him, his legs parallel to Chris’s. He bends his knee so that it knocks against the one Chris has raised. 

“Why, Colfer, are you flirting with me?” Darren plays coy but he beams so there’s no mistaking that he likes it. At least, he hopes there’s no mistaking it. If climbing into a hot tub naked doesn’t send out the available and interested vibes, Darren isn’t sure what will.   
  
Chris ignores the remarks and smiles at him, genuine and peaceful. “Thank you for this. I still don’t have any clue why you did it, but this is... exactly what I needed.”  
  
“Yeah, well.” Darren shrugs and scratches his fingers against his chest lazily. “I try.”   
  
“You do, don’t you?” Chris murmurs. “Look at the view. This is amazing.”   
  
Darren does look. He looks at the mountains against the clear sky, the stars shining over them. It’s beautiful, but Chris - Chris is what he can’t tear his eyes away from. The way he tips his head back against the rim of the tub, eyes closed and adam’s apple bobbing with each breath. Darren falls hard and fast for the sweat that glistens along the tendon of his neck and the stubble under his jaw. His fingers twitch against his thighs with the urge to reach out and touch.   
  
“Darren?” Chris says. His voice goes soft and high and he sounds younger. For a split second he’s the boy Darren met two years ago, full of hope and excitement and not entirely convinced he’ll get what he wants. “Why did you bring me here?”   
  
“I just wanted to make you happy,” Darren says. “I wanted to do something for you.”   
  
“So it was friendly generosity?”   
  
“No, actually, it was fucking selfish,” Darren admits. Chris looks at him in surprise. “I wanted to be the person to give you this, and I wanted to be here with you. I wanted to be the _only_ person here with you.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
Darren shrugs. “Because if we met any other way...”   
  
He says it without thinking but even if he had thought, he’d probably have still said it. He just hadn’t anticipated the hurt on Chris’s face when the words hang between them. “What is that supposed to mean?”   
  
Darren reaches down between them and puts his hand on Chris’s ankle. It’s probably the most intimate touch he’s ever shared with Chris outside of character. “Chris, I think you are amazing.”   
  
“But.” Chris says it bitterly, looking away. With his head tilted just so and his posture tense like he’s about to spring away, he’s never looked more like a gorgeous and prickly feline.   
  
“No but,” Darren says firmly. “No catch. No qualifications. You’re amazing, and you know I’m crazy about you.”   
  
“So you have to take me halfway around the world to tell me?”   
  
“No, I could have told you back home. But I am crazy about you so I wanted to fly you halfway around the world to tell you.”   
  
“Then what did you mean by ‘if we met any other way’?” He sits up and pulls his legs closer to him, wrapping his arms around them.   
  
Darren scoots forward and copies his posture. “Chris, if we met any other way, we’d probably be here on our fucking honeymoon or something.”   
  
“Oh.” Chris breathes out, visible in the rapidly dropping temperature of the night. “Wow.”   
  
“I’m not saying you have to do anything, or we have to... to be anything. But...”   
  
“I don’t know,” Chris says, looking down. “We only have a few days left. Can we just....”   
  
“Yeah,” Darren says, because it doesn’t matter if Chris wants to spend their last three days learning how to juggle and play kazoo, he is all on board.  
  
Chris smiles. “I just want to be with you while we’re here.”   
  
Darren reaches out and traces the line of Chris’s arm down to his hand, then links their fingers together.   
  
*   
  
That night, Chris sleeps in Darren’s bed. They don’t touch but they talk long into the night and it feels cleansing and exhausting and uplifting and Darren hasn’t known anyone he could do this with in years.   
  
When they wake in the morning, they look at each other over the distance of a pillow and Darren doesn’t even try to resist when the urge hits him. He leans over and kisses Chris’s chin, drags his tongue over the cleft of it to feel the hair just beginning to soften from bristle. Chris huffs out a gentle laugh and twists away. “That tickles,” he says, in a sleep rough voice.   
  
Darren smiles and drops his head to Chris’s shoulder, daring an arm across his chest to keep him close. “Sorry.”   
  
“No, you’re not,” Chris says.   
  
“No,” Darren smiles back. “I’m not. Now go back to sleep.”

Chris blinks once or twice at him then nods. He leans in until his head is almost touching Darren's and then smiles with his eyes shut. "You, too."   
  
Darren won't sleep, but he'll wait until Chris does and get up to make them breakfast. Still, he brushes his nose against Chris's and murmurs a yes.  
  
*  
  
They celebrate the new year together, trading wine and stories and first kisses, second kisses, more and more until they lose count and move on to other firsts.   
  
With the covers twisted around them and sweat still cooling on their skin, Darren insists on a toast. He pads naked through the cozy little cabin to fetch their glasses from the next room and brings them back half full of champagne. The bed is still warm and Chris is soft and hard in turns against him, smooth and rough, needy and greedy all at once. He steals kisses before Darren can even get the words out but once he finds his breath to speak, he tells Chris that they’re toasting to a year of change.


End file.
